The Boy in the Window
by Ibbonray
Summary: "Mommy, there's a boy outside. He looks sad. You should let him come in and give him some candy." "Well, my little Maysilee, why don't you go on out there and invite the boy in yourself?" Maysilee and Haymitch when they were four years old, and how they really met; how a kind girl helped a troubled boy. One-shot. Preview to a soon-to-be-published Maysilee Donner POV fanfic.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games, or anything in it, including District 12, Haymitch and Maysilee. **

**I have decided to create this short one-shot because it tells of the day Haymitch and Maysilee met each other. I am working on a story in Maysilee Donner's point of view, but it does not include this scene, so I created this as... sort of a preview of what is yet to come. Look out for 'Brace Yourself', which should be published in the coming month or two.****  
**

**The poem is based off of 'Roses are Red' which most of you probably already know. (Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and I love you. Those are the words, aren't they?) I did write it myself, though.**

**Please, enjoy.**

* * *

_Roses are red_

_Violets are blue_

_Candies are sweet_

_And perhaps so are you_

_The roses may flourish_

_The violets might grow_

_But think of the future_

_Which we do not know_

_Roses could bleed_

_Violets could bruise_

_Why take a chance_

_When there's so much to lose_

_Roses are red_

_Violets are blue_

_We can't love each other_

_So maybe we're through._

* * *

She sits at the window, watching the water droplets slide down the cool glass panel, beading up in places. One hand is placed delicately on the window, tiny palm covering a small portion of the plane. The other is wrapped around a thin white stick with a flat circle of hard candy on the end. In the course of a few minutes, she has repeatedly lifted the saliva-covered lollipop up to her extremely sticky mouth and taken many satisfying licks.

Her sister, Myra, is sitting further away from the window, consuming her lollipop a bit more sophisticatedly, taking a tentative lick here and there. Occasionally, Myra will scold her on how messily she eats her candy. She doesn't care very much, and is content sitting here, sticky-mouthed, staring at the pouring rain.

Her daddy is in the back rooms, making more of the caramel chocolate truffles that have been running low lately. Her mother, a beautiful, golden-haired woman, sits at the cash register, watching over her two twin daughters, while reading a lengthy novel and sipping a cup of peppermint tea. They haven't got many customers in the sweet shop today, what with the dreary, unappealing weather. That is why the girls are free to roam about the shop as they'd like instead of being confined to just the upper portion of the building (their living quarters). The only downfall is their mother's rule; "no sampling the candy". At the moment, she's content with her lollipop, though.

She licks the candy again, staring at the gray cobblestone street, with its lighter-coloured pathways on either side. The rain is a bit hard to see through, so when she looks at the building across the street, the sign is a little hazy. She knows what it says, though. _Cartwright's Shoes, _along with an elaborate design located in the centre. She wonders how many times she's looked at that sign in her four years of life. Too often for one of that age, she assumes.

All of a sudden, someone walks down the path in front of their candy shop. _Who is it?_ She wonders. Surely nobody would want to travel in this storm, with or without an umbrella or any shield from the rain! But her eyes are not playing tricks on her; for there is someone right outside the window. He is a little boy about her age and she wonders where his parents are, since he is alone. Silently, too curious to even bother taking a lick of her lollipop, she watches as the boy stops about three metres away, back facing the window, and sits down on the curb, burying his head in his hands.

He looks really sad, and she feels like she should do something to help the boy, but she doesn't know what. She is rendered useless as she sits there, fingers still splayed out on the pane of glass, eyes wide and observing. Finally, she stands up, releasing the lollipop stick. The candy clatters to the floor and she leaves it there as she says, "Mommy, look, there's a boy outside."

"Is there?" Her mother asks, uninterested. She looks up from her book and stares at the girl's face, wide-eyed. "Maysilee, how did you manage to smear your lollipop all over your face?"

Maysilee puts her small hands on her hips and says again, "Mommy, there's a boy outside. He looks sad. You should let him come in and give him some candy."

The woman finally stands up and walks over to the window her daughter was sitting next to not too long ago. She peers out the glass and her eyebrows knit in a worried expression. "Well, my little Maysilee, why don't you go on out there and invite the boy in yourself?" Maysilee is delighted by this, because she loves rain and her mother almost never lets her go outside during storms. She invites her twin to come along, but Myra denies curtly.

She then skips out the door, the bell jingling merrily at her exit, into the cold drizzle. She doesn't mind it much, liking the way it soaks her blue and green patterned dress. Maysilee spins around in it a bit, then walks up to the sitting boy. "Hi, I'm Maysilee, what's your name?"

The boy looks up. Instantly, she freezes, staring at him. He is really pretty for a boy. His hair is black and down to his shoulders, but judging by its waviness it's naturally curly; it is just soaked by the rain. His eyes are a silvery gray, like the colour of the cobblestone streets combined with the hue of a full moon at midnight. But they are also weary, and as soon as she shakes herself out of her stunned state, she realizes he's shivering. "H-haym-mitch A-abern-nathy," he replies, wrapping his arms around himself in a frail attempt to keep warm.

Instantly, she undertakes a motherly persona. "Well, let's get you inside and warm you up! And you can have some candy. Do you like candy?"

"I-I don't k-know," Haymitch says, and she stares at him, confused. Why wouldn't he know if he liked candy or not? "I've n-never tried c-candy b-before."

"You've never tried candy?" She asks in amazement. And she'd thought everyone had! What a surprise. "Come with me," she says importantly, helping him up and towing him a few metres through the rain, opening the door to the candy shop. They hear an audible 'ding', and step onto the doormat, shivering and dripping wet, and she closes the door behind her. Maysilee's mother has already fetched a few towels from the upstairs, as well as some clothes for Haymitch.

It is the little boy Maysilee's mother addresses. "Now, we don't have any young boys, but Maysilee's father kept a few of his old favourite clothes over the years, so although they may not fit you perfectly, they'll be good enough for now. Maysilee, go direct him to the bathroom." They nod and wrap towels around their wet clothes, bounding their way up the stairs to the Donner's living quarters. Maysilee shows Haymitch a bathroom, and then undresses and redresses in her bedroom. Afterwards, they are both still cold, but feeling remarkably dry; although Haymitch is a little uncomfortable in the slightly large clothing.

Haymitch explains that his father sent him to the baker's to buy cookies, but gave him no money, and therefore Haymitch simply decided to take a walk, which was a bad decision considering the downpour. When she asks why his father would do such a thing, he replies, "He's drunk on booze." Maysilee doesn't know what booze is, but she pretends she does.

She gives him a dark chocolate truffle to consume, and Haymitch exclaims that he doesn't like it. She doesn't understand, since she loves that kind of truffle, but it's not her place to judge. She's never met someone that isn't fond of candy but she supposes Haymitch is an odd type of boy. She doesn't know anyone like him.

After about an hour, the Donners send Haymitch on his way, equipped with an umbrella, his wet clothes, and a bag of cookies. Not bakery-made cookies, but they are good enough. Haymitch's father is satisfied. And, that night, Maysilee feels as if she's done something very nice. It makes her feel like she could do anything for anyone, now. That's why she picks up the lollipop she dropped, instead of having her mother throw it away for her.

The next day, Maysilee would wonder about Haymitch. And the day after that. And the day after that. Truth is, after a few months, she would forget about him. Two years later, at school, she would see him again but not pay the boy any mind. No mind at all, until he would approach her in the meadow, two days before the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games. Then, they would be reaped together. They would form an alliance in the Hunger Games. She would die, and he would win.

But while Maysilee would forget all about the boy she saw through the window, he would never forget about her. He would trust his instincts; and they would tell him to not talk to her, not to befriend her. After the Hunger Games, he would realize why- he didn't want to form any sort of bond with a girl he would have to watch die. But he never would forget of how well her family treated him, despite him being from the Seam. He never would forget about the girl that was kind enough to help him when he didn't know what to do. And, to the day of his death at sixty years old, he never would forget how much he loved her. How much he loved Maysilee Donner.


End file.
